Gary Lutz

Some excerpts from Stories in the Worst Way

“It read: ‘CAUTION: THIS BAG IS NOT A TOY.’ I kept it there to remind me that everything is in lieu of everything else.”

“I would spend too much time putting my finger on what was wrong. I was wearing the finger out.
What was wrong was very simple.
Sometimes her life and mine fell on the same day.”

“I let slip the remark that one instant your life is a complete, if hard-to-see, accumulation of people and all the wrong ideas about them, and then you’re already halfway through the next, garnering moment.”